The World

Anybody following the US healthcare debate – and the statements of Sarah Palin on almost anything – might be forgiven for thinking that the Republican Party is now completely off its trolley. But there are still American conservatives providing a rational and sceptical view of the Obama administration. The Shadow Government web-site is a platform for Republican foreign-policy experts, who often have interesting things to say.

Republican scepticism is not only being focussed on the Obama administration. Will Inboden, a former official in the Bush National Security council, is now based in London. He recently took a look at Britain’s own shadow government – the Tories – who are probably just nine months away from government.

Inboden strives to be polite and positive; the Tories are the Republicans’ sister party, after all. But his critique of Conservative thinking on foreign policy is, I think, fairly devastating. Tory thinking comes across as “anemic”, empty and – even – defeatist. Inboden quotes the recent speech by William Hague, the shadow foreign secretary, in which Hague acknowledged that “Britain stands to lose a good deal of its ability to shape world affairs” over the next decade.

I was at that Hague speech and was very surprised that he was willing to say something like that in public. Of course, on one level, its simply a statement of the bleeding obvious. But it’s the kind of obvious fact that even Labour ministers tend to avoid stating, in favour of blather about Britain as a “global hub”. And I’m not sure whether, from an American point of view, this Tory modesty about Britain’s global role is necessarily a good sign. It might signal that Britain will be less willing, in future, to sign up as the willing sidekick to America’s global sherriff.